Cau­tion urged on tran­si­tion to green

Cau­tion urged in how green tran­si­tion is man­aged af­ter long list of projects axed

WINNIPEG Fed­eral ef­forts to build greater con­sen­sus on a long-term en­ergy strat­egy for Canada met pro­vin­cial re­al­ity Thurs­day, as Al­berta warned about the dan­gers of “the pen­du­lum swing­ing too far” against oil and gas, and Bri­tish Columbia stuck to its guns in op­pos­ing the pro­posed Trans Moun­tain oil pipe­line while the prov­ince piv­ots to­ward green en­ergy.

In a panel dis­cus­sion at a con­fer­ence con­vened by Jim Carr, the fed­eral nat­u­ral re­sources min­is­ter, Al­berta En­ergy Min­is­ter Marg McCuaig-Boyd urged cau­tion about how a green tran­si­tion is man­aged.

“It’s im­por­tant for us to keep peo­ple work­ing and have a strong econ­omy,” McCuaig-Boyd told the meet­ing. “This is im­por­tant for us be­cause good jobs and eco­nomic op­por­tu­nity un­der­write our abil­ity to tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­omy. A strong econ­omy gives us ca­pac­ity to in­vest in re­new­ables, funds green in­fra­struc­ture and funds in­no­va­tion.”

Al­berta’s NDP gov­ern­ment is do­ing its part to help with the en­ergy tran­si­tion by putting a price on car­bon, phas­ing out coal, cap­ping oil­sands emis­sions while still grow­ing pro­duc­tion, said McCuaig-Boyd, one of the few voices at the meet­ing de­fend­ing Canada’s oil sec­tor and its work­force.

Carr is host­ing a two-day con­ver­sa­tion to “cre­ate a long-term vi­sion for Canada’s en­ergy fu­ture” with heavy in­put from academia, Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties, the pub­lic and green ad­vo­cates.

Those con­di­tions have re­sulted in a long list of oil and gas projects be­ing can­celled, in­clud­ing Tran­sCanada Corp.’s En­ergy East pipe­line last week af­ter the fed­eral gov­ern­ment ex­panded its re­view to in­clude up­stream and down­stream cli­mate change im­pacts.

McCuaig-Boyd said she re­mains con­fi­dent the Trans Moun­tain pipe­line be­tween Al­berta and the B.C. coast “will be built in good time, which will be very good for Al­berta and for Canada.”

But she also said good reg­u­la­tory re­forms are needed to avoid scar­ing away in­vestors. “We don’t want it to be so over­lapped that what we do in Al­berta is be­ing du­pli­cated fed­er­ally, and then it’s way too long and leaves those peo­ple be­hind.”

Carr said the fed­eral gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to sup­port Trans Moun­tain, which it ap­proved last year.

“Ninety nine per cent of Cana­dian ex­ports of oil and gas go to the U.S.” he said. “That means we have to ex­pand our ex­port mar­kets, and our most ob­vi­ous ex­pan­sion is to Asia. There is this in­sa­tiable ap­petite for Cana­dian prod­uct.”

But the project is be­fore the Fed­eral Court of Ap­peal in B.C., where the pro­vin­cial gov­ern­ment, mu­nic­i­pal­i­ties, and Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties are chal­leng­ing its per­mit.

B.C. En­ergy Min­is­ter Michelle Mun­gall said any re­source de­ci­sion needs the con­sent of all First Na­tions, “and as it stands right now with the Trans Moun­tain pipe­line, they don’t have 100 per cent from all First Na­tions who have been im­pacted.”

“First Na­tions in the Lower Main­land have ex­pressed op­po­si­tion to this pipe­line, and so it’s in­cum­bent on the feds to be work­ing with First Na­tions in terms of what their con­cerns are, rather than just bar­relling through,” Mun­gall told re­porters.

She would not say whether full con­sent is re­quired from First Na­tions on the pipe­line route, or through­out B.C., or in the Lower Main­land. “We have ju­rispru­dence on that,” she said. “We have treaty rights on this and we have a lot of le­gal­i­ties on this.”

She said her gov­ern­ment re­mains sup­port­ive of the liq­ue­fied nat­u­ral gas sec­tor, which she said through ex­ports can help Asian economies re­duce their de­pen­dence on coal and cut car­bon emis­sions.

While two big LNG projects were can­celled since the elec­tion of her NDP gov­ern­ment, Mun­gall blamed the de­ci­sions on low com­mod­ity prices and said the LNG industry re­mains alive in her prov­ince.

Marg McCuaig-Boyd

Comments

It only makes sense that since Indian Bands are more often than not, the leaders in fighting against the building of any further pipelines that the rules of the game be changed to suit the resulting loss of jobs and revenue for the Canadian Government. Simply put there should be a formula put into place that would calculate what the resulting revenue loss is to government when a pipeline project actually cancelled because the Indian Bands were trying to stop the pipeline.

It would not be hard to put a factual & precise number on what the resulting loss to the Canadian Government would be. Then the Canadian Government would take whatever the financial loss is and then subtract that from the amount of money that is giving to the Indian Bands across the Country. Or in other words you want to block any future pipelines, then you will feel the financial resulting impact just like the rest of us Canadians.

However I somehow think that these Indian Bands would all of a sudden have a change of heart and they would start screaming at the top of their lungs to get the pipelines built...

The fact is is when we the people are losing jobs in the energy sector, when we are losing money, when we are paying less taxes as a result of these pipelines not being built, when the Canadian Government takes in less revenue "Yes The Indian Bands should also get far less money"